A meat mincing machine and a method of this nature are already known from the publication DE 10312605 A1. This publication describes a meat mincing machine for the production of minced foodstuffs with at least one blade and a following perforated disc and a separating device. In the publication an externally driven discharge screw is arranged in a discharge tube. This discharge screw is used to facilitate the quality-compatible mincing and sorting of raw materials independently of the ram pressure. The screw is externally driven. This external drive is for example a pneumatic motor, which facilitates the closed and open-loop control of the discharge screw, without interfering with the drive system of the meat mincing machine.
From the publication EP-A1-0900595 a set of separating cutters for machines for mincing meat is also already known. Here too it is already known per se that hard and stringy constituents of the product to be cut in the set of separating cutters are drawn off transverse to the conveying direction of the mincing machine. From U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,376 a device is also already known which allows the sorting of bones and other hard constituents from the foodstuff to be processed.
Meat mincing machines are used in the food industry for the mincing of foodstuffs, in particular minced meat. Here, the meat is put into a charging muff and pressed by a conveyor device against a multi-bladed cutter. The cutter minces the meat which is then pressed out of the meat mincing machine through a perforated disc. Also, sets of cutters are known with a number of blades and a number of perforated discs.
Undesired, hard and solid constituents of the meat, such as for example tendons, sinews, rind, bone fragments, connective tissue and possible non-meat constituents, such as for example metal parts such as clips, etc. cannot be sufficiently minced by the cutter nor pressed through the perforated disc. For this reason there are meat mincing machines with appropriate separating devices for separating hard constituents of this nature.
Basically, there are two types of separating and sorting devices. Meat mincing machines with internal separation on one hand and meat mincing machines with external separation on the other.
All these separating devices have the disadvantage that due to the separated material, inaccuracies in the weight of the portions occur with mincing machines in which the minced meat is filled directly into the casing from the mincing machine. These weight inaccuracies also occur with mincing systems with which portions of minced meat are produced for immediate insertion into packaging machines.